Hoping some of you financially savvy types can help here.My uncle has sold his house and is renting until his new place is built next year. He is a bit paranoid about the banks. Would I be right in saying to technically protect his money for the next year he needs to split across a few banks up to £85k for the protected limits. Or is National Savings as safe for a lump sum? Cheers

Ronald is the bullion the sort of thing you can buy for cash or does it get logged electronically on some sort of register. Just thinking it could be a good IHT and long term care costs dodge. Buy it for cash, store it somewhere safe and it need never show up on any probate.

Good question. You can buy 'paper' gold/silver. However, that runs the risk that whoever is selling you this might be oversubscribing the amount of gold/silver they actually hold. You could get burned BIG TIME using this service.

It is best (although, perhaps less convenient) to hold physical. I have a small safe in which I store my bullion.

When you are referring to gold/silver. Pardon my ignorance does that actually mean holding the physical metal or some sort of "electronic share" represented by the metal. Just thinking about the practicalities of buying it and holding it.

The governments have already shown they won't let any of the mainstream retail banks go pop but if he's that worried then stuck it in national savings or buy some gilts. The capital position of the banks are very different now to 2008 and UK retail and investment banking activity is being seperated next year to reduce the risks to personal customers even further so I don't think his concerns are legit as long as he goes with a mainstream provider.